dis assembly
dis assembly is a collaborative and supportive arts co-lab dedicated to supporting conditions for neurodiversity; rethinking support and collaboration; and creating networks of mutual support. We are inventing our own ways of living.
Dena Davida
Dena Davida, an artivist curator living in Montreal, is also an ethnographic researcher, dance teacher, dancer, editor and indexer. She completed her doctorate at the Université de Québec (2006) where she taught improvisation, composition, creative dance pedagogy, dance aesthetics and anthropology. She co-founded and curated the Tangente dance presenting space (1980-2019) and the Festival international de la nouvelle danse (1985+). Her writings on dance and culture are widely published. In 2022, she initiated the biannual TURBA: The Journal for Global Practices in Live Arts Curation. a seminal publication for the study, theory, and praxis of curatorial strategies in live arts.
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Michael Nardone
Michael Nardone is a writer and editor based in Montréal. His recent and forthcoming works include: Convivialities (a book of dialogues), Border Tuner | Sintonizador Fronterizo (a monograph on Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, co-edited with Edgar Picazo Merino), Aural Poetics (an edited work on sound and composition across the arts), Yellow Towel: A Score (a collaboration with Dana Michel), the Documents on Expanded Poetics book series (which he co-edits with Nathan Brown), The Transatlantic Conversation (a translation of Abigail Lang’s monograph on contemporary French and US poetry), and The Ritualites (a book of poems), as well as a range of essays and editorial works concerning the literary arts and other inscriptive practices. Formerly a postdoctoral research fellow at the Université de Montréal and a PennSound visiting fellow at the University of Pennsylvania, Nardone completed a PhD…Find out more
Re’al Christian
Re’al Christian (MA, Hunter College; BS, New York University) is the Assistant Director of Editorial Initiatives at the Vera List Center, where she edits and manages the center’s publishing projects, including anthologies, artist books, exhibition booklets, communications, and the digital series Post/doc. As an independent writer, her work explores issues related to diasporas, movement, language, and ecology. Her essays, interviews, and reviews have appeared in Art in America, Artforum, The Brooklyn Rail, BOMB Magazine, and ART PAPERS, where she is a Contributing Editor. She has written texts for catalogues and anthologies including And ever an edge (Studio Museum in Harlem), Track Changes: A Handbook for Art Criticism (Paper Monument), Howardena Pindell: Numbers/Pathways/Grids (Garth Greenan and Dieu Donné), and On the…Find out more
Kathleen Foran-Spragge
Kathleen Foran-Spragge is an independent curator, writer, and researcher whose work explores how patterns of listening and sounding can be altered to foster relationships between humans and with the more-than-human. Her MFA thesis exhibition at OCAD University, What Passes Unspoken (2025), featured artworks that use sound and movement to bridge linguistic divides. She serves as Board Chair at Xpace Cultural Centre and is a member of the programming committee at InterAcess. Her practice is committed to supporting emerging artists, facilitating interdisciplinary collaboration, and strengthening community connections. While at OCAD, she hosted a podcast interviewing graduate students from across the university’s six programs about their Master’s research, available on the OCAD U Live YouTube channel.Find out more